Posts Tagged ‘gourmet cookies’

Yet again, it is time for this week’s StarSmile Competition. At stake is a dozen delicious Smiley Cookies that we’ll deliver fresh to your door. For your chance to win, all you have to do is guess the name of the celebrity whose smile is pictured below. You can enter by tweeting your answer @Smileycookie with the tag #StarSmile or by leaving a guess in the comments section of the StarSmile post on our Facebook page.

Guess as often as you like and we’ll keep adding hints on Facebook and Twitter every now and then to help you out. We’ll randomly draw the winner from everyone who guessed correctly at 3 PM today.

But enough of the contest mumbo jumbo, can you tell us who this is?

Guess who this is and win one dozen delicious Smiley Cookies delivered fresh to your door!

Once again, it is time for this week’s StarSmile Competition. At stake is a dozen delicious Smiley Cookies that we’ll deliver fresh to your door. For your chance to win, all you have to do is guess the name of the celebrity whose smile is pictured below. You can enter by tweeting your answer @Smileycookie with the tag #StarSmile or by leaving a guess in the comments section of the StarSmile post on our Facebook page.

Guess as often as you like and we’ll keep adding hints on Facebook and Twitter every now and then to help you out. We’ll randomly draw the winner from everyone who guessed correctly at 3 PM today.

But enough of the contest mumbo jumbo, can you tell us who this is?

Guess which celebrity belongs to this smile and you could win a dozen tasty Smiley Cookies delivered fresh to your door!

Once again, it is time for this week’s StarSmile Competition. At stake is a dozen delicious Smiley Cookies that we’ll deliver fresh to your door. For your chance to win, all you have to do is guess the name of the celebrity whose smile is pictured below. You can enter by tweeting your answer @Smileycookie with the tag #StarSmiles or by leaving a guess in the comments section of the StarSmile post on our Facebook page.

Guess as often as you like and we’ll keep adding hints on Facebook and Twitter every now and then to help you out. We’ll randomly draw the winner from everyone who guessed correctly at 3 PM today.

Once again, it is time for this week’s StarSmiles Competition. At stake is a dozen delicious Smiley Cookies that we’ll deliver fresh to your door. For your chance to win, all you have to do is guess the name of the celebrity whose smile is pictured below. You can enter by tweeting your answer @Smileycookie with the tag #StarSmiles or by leaving a guess in the comments section of the StarSmiles post on our Facebook page.

Guess as often as you like and we’ll keep adding hints on Facebook and Twitter every now and then to help you out. We’ll randomly draw the winner from everyone who guessed correctly at 3 PM today.

Once again, it is time for this week’s StarSmiles Competition. At stake is a dozen delicious Smiley Cookies that we’ll deliver fresh to your door. For your chance to win, all you have to do is guess the name of the celebrity whose smile is pictured below. You can enter by tweeting your answer @Smileycookie with the tag #StarSmiles or by leaving a guess in the comments section of the StarSmiles post on our Facebook page.

Guess as often as you like and we’ll keep adding hints on Facebook and Twitter every now and then to help you out. We’ll randomly draw the winner from everyone who guessed correctly at 3 PM today.

But enough of the contest mumbo jumbo, can you tell us who this is?

Win a dozen smiley cookies delivered to your door by guessing which celebrity's smile this is!

But what if you don’t have a friend or family who has a birthday coming up soon, don’t worry. You can still order one (or more) today to take advantage of our discount and then select the shipping date of your choice so the basket shows up at the recipient’s door a day or two after the cookies come out of the oven.

Think about it: You could buy gifts for any number of your friends today, stop worrying about forgetting an important birthday and then just sit back and wait for the thanks to come streaming in when your friends and family members’ birthdays arrive.

Sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, and baking powder or baking soda. By themselves, these humble ingredients are the main parts of infinite recipes, but when combined in a certain way, they compose one of the most traditional, well known and well loved cookies in the whole world: The Sugar Cookie.

History of the Sugar Cookie

The modern incarnation of the sugar cookie can be traced back to the mid 1700s in Nazareth Pennsylvania. There, German Protestant settlers created the round, crumbly, buttery cookie that came to be known as the Nazareth Cookie.

Plain Sugar Cookie

The Nazareth Sugar Cookie was adopted as Pennsylvania’s official cookie by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (House Bill 219,) though there has been some ambiguity concerning this issue after a 4th grade class at Caln Elementary School in Coatesville lobbied for a resolution that would designate chocolate chip cookies as Pennsylvania’s official cookie.

This blogger sides with the Nazareth Sugar Cookie for historical reasons despite her own personal preference for chocolate chip cookies.

Ancient History or How the Cookie Jumbles.

That’s right. Jumbles. Arguably, the precursor to the Nazareth Sugar Cookie is the Jumble, a biscuit that gained popularity in the 17th and 18th century in Europe chiefly because of the fact that, as a non-leavened food, it could be dried and stored for many months.

Jumble Cookies

Jumbles were known by many different names including gemmel, jambal and jumbal. They were often savory rather than sweet, flavored with rosewater or anniseed. They were traditionally shaped in knots and other intricate shapes and baked until crispy in order to withstand the test of time.

These cookies were introduced to Europe by the Moors of Spain and probably had their origins in the middle east where sugar figured heavily into the daily diet. These very early middle eastern cookies probably also included nuts and fruits such as dates.

Early Jumbles probably looked more like these middle eastern cookies than the mixture of ingredients that we see today.

Middle Easter Jumbals

Modern Sugar Cookie Traditions

The modern Nazareth-style sugar cookie has gained enormous popularity in America. Sometime in the 1930s it became traditional for children to leave sugar cookies and milk out for Santa Clause on Christmas Eve. Because of how easy it is to cut and shape the sugar cookie dough, customized sugar cookies like ours have become wildly popular.

It’s interesting to see how far the sugar cookie has come from its origins as hard tack for travelers. What was a necessity for survival has become a sweet treat for kids of all ages. What’s your favorite way to eat sugar cookies?

Congratulations to Hollie Geitner, our winner, of this year’s Mother’s Day competition. Below is Hollie’s story. As this year’s winner, Hollie, wins a dozen Smiley Cookies a month for the next year. Congratulations Hollie!

I had always wanted to be a mom, but my dreams were set aside after suffering a complicated miscarriage at 14 weeks of pregnancy in 2004. The next year, my husband and I decided to get divorced after four years of marriage. It was a very painful and trying couple of years until I met my now husband, Michael. We got engaged in early 2008 and shortly thereafter found out we were pregnant! We had a wonderful summer wedding and our attendants were his three children from his first marriage. On Halloween, our baby boy, Preston (aka Boo), was born, adding to our family. For my first Mother’s Day, my husband gave me a very special and beautiful sterling silver bead bracelet that spelled out “Preston.” I wear it every single day and think how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband, precious son and three bonus children who we see every other weekend. Life sure has some twists and turns, but if you go with it, your dreams will eventually come true!

We got so many great entries for our Mother’s Day cookie competition! You can vote for your favorite here.

It was really hard to pick finalists for this competition. All the entries were so heartwarming and sweet. Being a mother certainly has it’s rewards. Here are the ten entries we picked as finalists here at Smiley Cookie. Thanks so much for telling us your stories.

Elizabeth Fulton:
I’ve only had one Mother’s Day so far, but it was a lovely one. My husband and my daughter took me out for ice cream. I had a big banana split, and my daughter had her first bite of ice cream. A little shiver, but a great big smile. It was a nice afternoon. I look forward to my second Mother’s Day.

Hollie Geitner:
I had always wanted to be a mom, but my dreams were set aside after suffering a complicated miscarriage at 14 weeks of pregnancy in 2004. The next year, my husband and I decided to get divorced after four years of marriage. It was a very painful and trying couple of years until I met my now husband, Michael. We got engaged in early 2008 and shortly thereafter found out we were pregnant! We had a wonderful summer wedding and our attendants were his three children from his first marriage. On Halloween, our baby boy, Preston (aka Boo), was born, adding to our family. For my first Mother’s Day, my husband gave me a very special and beautiful sterling silver bead bracelet that spelled out “Preston.” I wear it every single day and think how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband, precious son and three bonus children who we see every other weekend. Life sure has some twists and turns, but if you go with it, your dreams will eventually come true!

Deb Morgan:
My son did at school, an entire book that he illustrated and wrote in third grade all about me! Why does he love me? “because she helps me with my homework, because she cooks good dinners, because she cares about me, she washes my clothes, she buys me rollerblades, etc,,,” He is now 18 and I cherish that book! I love all the gifts I receive from my children from the seedling that never grows but stays on the windowsill for a year, to tea bags in a paper teapot! Every gift is precious!

Monica Galore:
The best gifts I ever received were individual hand-made ceramic hand prints of my three sons. My son’s made them in school. Upon waking up on Mother’s Day, they presented them to me. I can still see their faces beaming with pride and great big smiles. What a precious and sweet sight to behold! These are such precious memories of Mother’s Day. No wonder I love Smiley Face Cookies. They remind me of my three sons with their sweet smiles.

Sherri Craig:
My son who at the time was single and 20 yrs old. Bought me this teddy bear with a little jewelry box attached to it. I opened the box there lay a beautiful white gold chain with a pendant of mother and child the pendant was layered in diamonds. I told him it was beautiful that this is something you give the mother of YOUR children and it was much to expensive for me. I would feel better if he took it back and bought me something simple. He said, “you are a mom, your my mom and your the best mom there ever could be.” I felt the tears build up in my eyes. I didn’t have the heart not to accept it. I wear it everyday.
It wasn’t even the necklace I consider the best present it is the words that came from his lips. I must be a pretty good mom for my young son to say them without even thinking about it. That will always be the best present I could have had…EVER!! Money can’t buy words that are priceless!!!

Kimberly Harter:
No sappy story here just the truth. The best Mother’s Day gift that my husband and son got for me was a STEELERS watch and a SIRIUS radio with a year subscription. We were living in Maryland at the time and I was bumming outt because I could not watch all the STEELERS games on cable there. With the SIRIUS radio I could at least listen to them and the watch is the most worn peice of jewelery I own. I even wear it more than my wedding rings!!

Jo Ann Barko:
The best gift that drove stright into my heart was from my daughter Jacqueline. Jacqueline went out into my garden and pick a few buds and one of the dogwood flowers. She then wrote this little note and put it all into a pretty silver leaft frame. It read ” Mommy, You are the most beautiful person, and the most respected that I could have. When I grow up, I want to be like you! You are my idol and always will be. You have more than any mothers, I just hope I’m as good as you. Love you forever, Bambino

Kris Rhoades:
My daughter’s school choir had a concert just before Mother’s Day last year and my daughter said that she was going to give me my gift that night. I video taped the concert, as I usually do, and during one of the songs she started signing the song. She and her friend had learned the sign language for the song and got permission from the teacher to do it that night. Of course I was worried that the video wouldn’t come out because I cried through the whole song. I was a proud Momma and it was the best Mother’s Day present I ever received! (I even posted the video on my facebook page so everyone could see it: http://www.facebook.com/krisrhoades?v=app_2392950137&ref=profile#!/video/video.php?v=75117605793)

Ashley Reynolds:
The best Mother’s Day gift I’ve received? Well, I’ve only had one so far! Last year, my son was 5 months old, and that’s all I needed. My husband and I had lost 2 babies by miscarriage the year earlier, so having my son in my arms on Mother’s Day, is as special as it gets to me!

Pamela Gage:
About 5 years ago, my Husband, Larry, asked our three sons if they would join us for dinner for Mothers Day. That Sept before, my middle son, Rob, had been married to our lovely daughter-in-law Liz, and I was having a difficult time with his “leaving” the house….as Mom’s sometimes do! We had a wonderful dinner together…and after dinner my sons each presented me with a card and small gift. My favorite gift that year was just so perfect, it brought tears to my eyes….Rob and Liz had made a certificate for “Time” to be spent with me….a whole day together! It was so thoughtful, and just what I wanted. A few weeks after that dinner, we went to the zoo, had a simple but delicious lunch together, and quality time that I will never forget. The best “gifts” in life don’t have to be expensive to be special, but time with family and those you love are priceless!